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Got this idea a couple of weeks back, doing manual work trying to assemble something I haven’t researched it! Well, I’ve researched a bit, but that does not count because I can’t prove it or bring some good theoretical arguments to it.

It’s more like a feeling, a simple idea:

The future will be a lot about rearranging atoms!

Imagine you’ll be able to buy only a small box, so small it will fit in your pocket, go home with it, power up you special ‘printer’ and get all those atoms rearranged based on a model you’ll be able to download from internet. Even further, if the ‘printer’ has a shredder too, you’ll be able to reuse the atoms from different useless things, recycle them and rearrange them into something else, you definitely need now.

Maybe this sounds a loot like science fiction, but, the more you look into it the more you’ll see how practical it would be.

Off-course, it will require very accurate maps of, well, atoms within an object. You wouldn’t like to obtain a cloud of useless gas, perhaps toxic too, instead of the so needed object. That map will have to contain a lot of data, perhaps more than we’re used to store right now – but that constantly improves, isn’t it?

It will also require compressing the space between the atoms, or who knows, maybe just rearranging them in a more convenient pattern for shipping. Maybe one day, we’ll simply be able to create minuscule neutron stars and get all the ‘big bang’ figured out.

Would love to read more on this topic, but, as per know – the internet is great for ‘surface’ information, an expert’s opinion is still rather difficult to find.

Disclaimer: For sure someone thought of this already. That does not prove anything, I haven’t read the idea somewhere, so it makes it my Utopian idea too. Would rather like to see someone else has the same ideas, that would actually mean we have more in common than we know.

How much you can stand for? Wisdom comes from experience, but be careful, as wiser you’ll get, as closer to death your heart will be. Greatest wisdom, is the closest step to insanity I would say.

More bad experiences, systematically empty your heart and all the empty spaces filled with aches, pain and regrets might be… Step by step, wisdom will teach you to stop listening to your heart. You will hear it’s echo less and less, until, at one point fading it’s sound beating you’ll stop waiting for wonders, you’ll forget how to dream.

Only few men mange to keep their heart healthy and be wise at the same time. we call them dreamers and their imagination, we consider it insane…

Disclaimer: Not even I am sure of what I meant to say, but still, Do you agree with me?

As an IT professional, I spend 8 to 12 hours a day, sometimes even more, in front of my two 24 inches monitors and my Rapoo mouse and keyboard. I got so used to this setup that I could use it with my eyes closed if needed.

Even though I never watch my keyboard while I’m typing, even though I use so many shortcut keys that in most windows I don’t even need the mouse anymore I started to think if the interaction with the keyboard couldn’t be more natural, more portable or even more efficient. Having this is mind, here is what I propose. (This is just a design exercise, it could be put in practice by a team of engineers with different particular skills – however I do not have all of them together yet)

Inspired by the Kinect for Xbox functions and knowing that projections can easily be made on different surfaces – was thinking to combine the 2 in a small device that would simply project the keyboard onto a flat surface. Here is how I imagine it:

It could be integrated in the monitor, or in the laptop case, eliminating the need to use a keyboard or mouse. The projection could be made either on the desk or on a special surface, but instead of providing a keyboard with individual keys, it would be more similar with a mobile phone keyboard.

How would this work?

I’m sure the Kinect inspired device – which I’m calling Projector, could be calibrated to know the position of any of my fingers. Based on where I tap them – it will know which keyboard I’ve wanted to press and would ensure the text editing for me.

Also, the Projector – would project on a flat surface (could be curbed too, that’s less important) the keys delimitation with white / yellow / red /blue / phosphorescent color enabling the user to know where the position of each key is.

Section 1:

Contains main keys – as a regular keyboard. Supposing that the Projector knows the position of each finger and its movement – typing can be made.

Section 2:

Show current application on the screen in a box with its name, by swiping left or right you could navigate through the different applications you are currently running

Show current tab in the same way as above and enable you to change between the browser tabs in the same way

Section 3:

Since holograms are not easy to be projected yet, this is only an imaginary delimitated space for now. For further usage – it could integrate projections of 3d objects that could be twisted on each and any part of them

Currently – using only an imaginary space above Section 3, by moving the fingers in the air you could:

Swipe between different opened applications

Size a specific window using (Thumb and Index fingers), rotate it or move its place on the displays

Drag and drop using Thumb, Index and Middle fingers

Section 4 – Mouse function

Index finger – ensures the mouse

Thumb finger – ensures the left click

Middle finger – ensure the right click

Index finger and Middle finger pressed together – ensure the scroll

Getting Thumb, Index and Middle fingers together will ensure drag and drop (close all fingers together select and move, expanding fingers – paste)

Closing all fingers in the fist and using Thumb and Index to select text, and copy/paste the selection in a different place

Section 5 – Y axes above section 4

Mouse representation in biplane coordinates but using the Y axe (by moving the Index finger in the air you move the pointer of the mouse on your screen)

By contracting Thumb Finger and Middle finger – same functions as above (left click and right click) will be ensured.

By bringing Thumb, Index and Middle fingers together – drag and drop will be realized as described above

By closing all fingers in the fist and using Thumb and Index select, copy, paste of text could be realized

Special setup function:

Establish the dimension of the projection of the flat surface (could be enlarged or made smaller as the zoom on a photo is made)

Establish the dimensions of other work spaces

I don’t think I’m proposing something too new. This concepts have been adapted for mobile phones or touch screens, I’m only trying to imagine using them in a different way. Might require deep investigations of each functions in order to make it easy to work with and most important as functional as possible.

Could be integrated with voice command, if OS for the laptop starts to support that too.

Let me know your thoughts about it in the comments.

PS: Searching for an image to represent the projection of a keyboard, I saw that the base function I’ve imagined is already built on a device: Images of products I didn’t know about this when I wrote the post. Still, the functions I’ve imagined go a bit further that what the built devices can do for now. Don’t you agree?

Among the rather cheep devices I usually call gadgets, my Raspberry Pi has a very special place. This thingy computer which I usually call the smallest laptop in my home is way cool with it’s multiple possibilities most of them well documented too.

The only thing I don’t like about it it’s formatting the Micro SD thing, once in a while when I want to reinstall it’s operating system from scratch.

Managed to do that once using an old phone as the Micro SD card reader, now I’m doing it using an old 3G stick that has a Micro SD card port – but start to wander why? Wouldn’t be simpler to just connect it to my computer?

How difficult would be to add a button to it, to use it as a Micro SD card adapter? Think of it, you already connect it with an USB cable to your laptop for example to power it up, you could use the same cable to format it or transfer data to it. Would be a lot easier than looking through all the old junk you no longer use to find a Micro SD card adapter or something that could replace it.

Even further, that button could have 3 positions:

Normal usage of the SD card for the little beast OS

Data storage/format from computer

Input port for different programs. A small app from the laptop could control that port and send multiple sequences of bits to it, then you’ll use the RaspberryPi to receive those packets. Could have some applications in testing or even automation.

I’ve always liked to listen music no matter what I’m doing. If I’m working, reading, driving, relaxing, cooking, fixing something in or around the house, waiting, geeking, or simply reflecting (as of doing nothing at all – which I call planning) – I always have some kind of music source playing somewhere in the background. Occasionally, even at full volume of the speakers / headphones / stereo system.

Being interested in new genes of music and sometimes actively looking for new tracks – I got curious about the Music Streaming Services too. Unfortunately, I was disappointed on what I found about them and their possibilities.

First I’ve tried to use Google Play Music. I installed the app on my Android phone and was stupefied to find out that, for free I can only listen to the tracks I upload to the service, no ad-funded service is available. But why Google? Why should I pay 10 pounds for this service? You are having such a big success with Youtube and many of the new generation listeners and musicians started to use it to listen or publish free music. Don’t know how much the earnings from youtube adds are, but for sure I don’t mind them. I don’t mind skipping them, I don’t mind watching them, I don’t mind buying things that are marketed to me this way.

I’m always trying to stay away from Apple services and devices. Will not talk about iTunes or Apple Music. From my point of view Apple is only good at selling overpriced services and devices, that hardly sometimes bring any improvement or step further to technology.

Regarding to music, I’m not going to buy from iTunes a masterpiece of engineering, that managed to sell a musician with no voice and no talent to million of people that easily believe that so called artist it’s a star. In the same way, I’m not going to pay for a music streaming service and here is why:

I was born in the 80’s and grew up in the 90’s. The Radio was my best friend during all those years and it streamed music to me for free;

I consider that it worth paying for music only for live concerts of known or unknown artists. Only live performances qualify as art worth paying for;

Going back to the Music Streaming Services – why don’t they take the good lessons learned during the 70’s, the 80’s and the 90’s? Adding some adds to the services – might pay the service I would think and you could publicize it for free enlarging your users. Don’t have the figures on this, but I’m sure some good solutions can be figured out.

Regarding the FM Radio stations, well, they are going to die slowly. The main reason why, is because with the internet speed increase and technology development, people expect to receive both audio and video service. Even if they only listen the audio, or have a quick glance at the video with the audio turned off if time doesn’t permit them to watch it entirely. Radio stations, because you can’t chose or schedule your preferred tracks, because you have to listen to idiot moderators, because they don’t present any integrated video content are going to slowly die.

In my humble opinion, this is where the Music Streaming Services should come in. I’m sure they could evolve to stream video content too, could enable elaborated schedulers, could offer multiple options for the users in terms of genes, artists or even surprise tracks. And they could easily do that for free for their users too, by adding small 30 seconds to 1 minute adds, customized for the location and the target audience by the music preferences. Would be what Youtube started to do right now on the free version, still, it can be a lot improved (I will present some further ideas for a scheduler for Youtube tracks in a further post).

I heard a rumor on some forums, that Google would like to take the music listeners off Youtube and have them use it’s Music Streaming Services. Could that be true? For me Youtube seemed to be a very successful story that manages to slowly change the way people listen to music.

It’s true Music Streaming Services might deliver better content, focused and particularized for Music, but still – as it looks like now it’s not a solution. Mark my words, the entire communication world and social media world will move towards video content in the next years. Even if most of the video content will not be watched because of lack of time or multi tasking, still, it’s better to have it as an option than not having it at all.

I could talk about this subject for hours. Will try to resume with a few conclusions bellow:

Stop buying everything Apple sells to you. It’s shitty and expensive any way

Stop paying for things that you could get for free

Consider access to music and information your human right, a true artist would like you to get the message of his song and listen to it, He would not be interested so much in the percentage of sells, hopefully…

Disclaimer: This is a pure personal view susceptible to change. The purpose of the topics is to start a constructive discussion in order to create a better future for ourselves.

I love my Chromecast little stick and I tend to use it even for Smart TVs. It’s easy to command and I can easily play my favorite youtube videos or youtube playlists.

I also love about it that it defaults (when nothing is streamed to it) to a nice app that simply shows beautiful nice Featured photos from Google+.

This got me thinking – why I can’t simply listen to music while seeing these nice photos? Why I have to watch them on perfect silence or have to use another device to play music?

For me it seems a fare questions so here are a couple of solutions I thought of:

Create a simple app that would allow you to chose what your TV displays. This would allow you to chose to play the youtube videos on background and let the random photos be displayed on your TV. It’s a simple idea, would simply work as 2 diferent tabs in a browser work.

Even nicer would be to be able to split the screen in 2, 1/3-2/3, 1/4 – 3/4 and chose what it’s played on left or right side (this applies to all the other items in the list)

or

Integrate the photos app with Google play music (I haven’t tried this service yet) and let the photos be played randomly while you listen a radio station for example.

or

The coolest idea would be to have an app that would play random photos from Google plus or the posts of the ones you follow on the social app (even it’s not the biggest social app used) persons or businesses – while you play your favorite music or favorite radio station.

Another nice feature/app I would like to have on my chromecast device might seem a little SF. Nowadays, 4G networks or very good internet services and wifi coverage allows you to make video calls. Why not be able to cast the video you receive during a video call to your chromecast and use the phone to initiate the video call and send the video of your own camera to your caller?

Think about it. You could easily make a conference of 3 people. They will receive the video from the front camera of your phone as usual, but you’ll be able to display their live videos on your TV (which is bigger and has a higher resolution than your phone, laptop, or computer monitor).

Even further, Chromecast could incorporate a mini video conference module and an app built with it, that might change the way some people make phone calls to their families, distant relatives, old friends that moved far away.

These are only the simple ideas. I’m sure if anyone finds them good enough they can be translated into a complete requirements document and a project plan can be created based on it.

For any further clarification of the ideas (if needed) drop me a note and I will reply. I would find it as a very relaxing activity to work even more and deeper on such a project🙂